How to Write Calls-to-Action That Get Clicked

70% of small business B2B websites don’t have a call-to-action button. With only 30% of businesses bothering to even have a CTA, it is no surprise that businesses are still making common and recurring CTA mistakes. There’s a clear lack of information on the topic. So, let’s start with the basics before we dive deeper into how to write call-to-actions that get clicked, shall we?

What are calls to action?

Communicating your message to potential customers can be a difficult task, especially when you are trying to sell something. You want the words to be memorable and persuasive. As a result, the call-to-action is everything – the words or phrases that compel people to click through, make a purchase, or even pick up the phone.

A call-to-action is a clickable link that appears at the bottom of a website, email, social media ad, or landing page, which prompts users to take a specific action. They are so important for your content that more than 90% of people who read the headline of your copy are sure to read your CTA, too. 

The average conversion rate for a CTA is 4.23%. Now, this figure might seem less significant but that’s still 4.23% more than if you don’t have a CTA at all. And the number can add up if you are working with a large volume of traffic. 

That being said, a well-written call-to-action positioned in the right marketing collateral can see a hike in both the click-through rates and conversions by up to 370%. 

Still, most brands don’t know how to write effective CTAs because they are usually rushed and don’t have time to think about what their customers want. And that’s unfortunate because your visitors usually come to your site for a purpose (either to buy or learn more) and if your CTA is unable to nudge them in the right direction, that’s a missed opportunity.  

So, if you are looking for ways to improve your conversion rates, then keep on reading!

Difference between a regular CTA and an effective CTA

As we have already established, CTAs are the most effective way to drive traffic to your landing page, but they are quite difficult to get right. Let’s face it, most CTAs are boring, generic, and dull. 

The primary difference between a regular CTA and an effective CTA is that the latter gets more clicks. A generic call-to-action, placed randomly in a copy, doesn’t specify what to do or how to act when someone clicks it. 

But an effective CTA is much more detailed and specific. It tells people exactly what to do and how to act. It stands out from the other text in your copy and gets your target audience’s attention within seconds (less than 3 seconds, to be precise). Even then, less than 50% of websites enjoy this opportunity because most businesses never really brainstorm or experiment with their CTA before finalizing it. 

Effective CTAs also help your customers find what they want faster. For example, if someone visits your site and they don’t know where to start, an effective CTA like “Check Out Our Other Products” or “Find Out More Our Products” instead of a generic “Learn More” text could be used to guide them in the right direction. 

Why do you need an effective CTA?

The statistics seem to be in the favor of CTAs but can you still do without them? 

The short answer is, no. They are unavoidable and you absolutely need them. Here’s why. 

All of the content on your landing page ought to have a purpose. For instance, if you create a video, it is because you want your viewers to learn something new, solve their problems, or get inspired. If you tell a story, you want them to feel something and connect with your brand.

Similarly, you need a compelling CTA to get people to take action and convert. CTAs can be a powerful tool in helping you to increase your conversions and sales – not just by being impactful but by actually providing your visitors with a clear incentive to act on your site. 

In fact, the reason that effective CTAs work so well is that they are designed to help people make decisions. They help your audience move from thinking about your content to actually taking the desired action — whether it is clicking on a link or filling out an opt-in form.

3 reasons why calls-to-action are used

There are a number of different types of calls-to-action and each has a purpose. They are all case-specific but more on that later. For now, let’s talk about the three reasons why CTAs are used: 

• To get shares: Shareable CTAs work by allowing visitors to share your content on their social media pages or with their friends via email, WhatsApp, Telegram – you name it.

• To educate: These are used when you want your visitor to receive more information on your brand, product, or service. “Read More” or “Learn More” are the most commonly found education-related CTAs. 

• To sell: This type of CTA is used when you want your visitor to make a purchase or even to book a paid appointment with you. You must have seen purchase CTAs as “Buy Now,” “Get 50% Off,” or “Book A Consultation Today.”

What makes a good CTA?

Right off the bat, good CTAs are easy to understand. It is important that visitors know what they are getting into before they take the action you desire. For that, they need to be familiar with your content and actually comprehend what you are talking about.  

A good CTA is one that’s written in such a way that it is clear what action the user needs to take in order to complete their transaction with your brand. The copy must also tell users why it is important for them to perform this action at this point in time.

Good CTAs also play on consumer psychology. CTAs in orange and red colors CTAs have been shown to increase conversions by 32.5% and 21%, respectively. 

On the other hand, Hubspot’s study revealed that CTAs attached to an anchor text see a 121% hike in the conversion rate. This could either be because anchor text CTAs appear as part of the copy – just like native ads or because they help your visitors avoid scrolling all the way to the bottom to take action. Anchor text CTAs are easily accessible when a prospective customer is ready to convert while reading your copy. 

Safe to say, the way you present your CTA also plays a crucial role in determining how many clicks you will receive. Using colors, graphics, and animated effects is part of making your CTAs pop. 

For example, instead of just writing “Sign Up Here,” adding a small animated clip or video that shows what happens when someone signs up for your newsletter or registers on your website could increase your chances of getting the clicks.

But wait, there’s more! Here are three of the most important things to remember when creating your CTA.

Relevance

A good CTA is relevant to your audience’s needs and expectations, which means it should address why they need or want what you are selling, not just tell them about it. A high-quality CTA will help potential customers understand what’s in it for them by providing them with value-relevant information that answers the one question that arises in their minds every time they see your ads or landing pages: “Why do I need your product or service?”

In addition, as mentioned before, every visitor interacts with your business with a specific purpose. For this reason, your CTA should be relevant to their user experience and goal if you want to elicit an action from them.

Imagine you run a dental clinic and are trying to get people to book an appointment via paid advertising. Instead of using “Book An Appointment” as your CTA, you use “Buy Now.” Not only would it confuse your audience but as a result, this will also lead your campaign to underperform because being a dentist, what could you be selling? Your target audience definitely isn’t looking to buy cleaner teeth after clicking the ad. 

Furthermore, relevance and specificity go hand in hand. Specific and targeted CTAs are much more likely to convert than bland and generic ones. For example, if you are running a newsletter for small business owners who want to grow their businesses, then an opt-in CTA that says something like “Subscribe To Access Small Business Growth Tips” will be much more effective than “Sign Up For Email Updates” because the former directly address the very problem that your target audience is trying to solve.  

Length

Thus far, we have established that your call-to-action must be crystal clear, easy to understand, and specific enough for people to know exactly what needs to be done next for it to be effective. But there’s more: It should also be concise so that visitors can easily digest all the information provided in the line without having to scroll down through too many words or paragraphs.

Most well-performing CTAs have 5 to 7 words. So, keep the line short and simple.

The idea is to get attention, and if you can’t do that with short CTAs, then the problem isn’t with your ads; it could be with the rest of your content. Because if they don’t understand exactly how they need to move forward, they are less likely to take action on your offer (and may even be turned off by the process).

Actionability

The entire point of a call to action is to encourage a clear action from the user — this means providing enough information for them to know what steps are required in order to complete their goal and nothing else. It also means starting your CTA with the exact verb (action) that you want them to perform. 

This means that if you want them to download your free eBook, make sure you start your CTA with the word “Download” so that your user knows exactly what they will be doing if they click on the CTA.  

Tips for writing the perfect calls-to-action for your ads

When you are creating a CTA, it is important to include the right elements to get your audience’s attention. The two most important elements are clarity and contrast. 

Clear text, bold letters, and bright colors make a CTA pop out at your audience, while dull text and drab colors blend into the background.

Likewise, clarity means that there are no confusing words in your CTA. You want your prospective customers to know exactly what they need to do next so that they can move on to their next task with ease. 

For instance, instead of writing “Buy Now,” you could consider writing “Add To Cart.” The latter would help eliminate the vagueness from your customer journey because it would tell your customers exactly what would happen if they click on the CTA.  

And finally, contrast means that your choice of font needs to be different enough to stand out from the surrounding text on the page without looking out of place. It should be large enough to shine among the other elements on the page and for people to read it comfortably across different screen sizes.

But there’s more! Let’s discuss the basics of writing calls-to-action that get clicked. 

Always start with a strong verb

When it comes to your calls to action, always start with a strong verb. Verbs are action-doing words, which makes them an excellent tool for grabbing the attention of your reader and making them want to take action. 

Some commonly used verbs include: buy, sell, get, download, join, register, learn, read, try, and sign up. These words immediately tell the reader what they need to do and what will happen once they click on the CTA. 

Command authority even in the brevity

Although your CTA needs to be concise, you shouldn’t miss your shot at making your point simply because you don’t have too many words at your disposal. Your CTA should summarize the rest of your copy in such a way that the reader shouldn’t feel the need to read anything. And that’s only possible when you are able to establish your authority without overwhelming or frustrating your readers. 

For example, “Buy Today” can’t be a very effective or even an authoritative CTA because it is too vague. But if you write something like “Get 20% Off If You Buy Today,” you could not only get your target audience’s attention more quickly but also the desired action.

Don’t put pressure on your audience

As humans, we measure every return based on the investment needed to acquire it. That’s why the best way to get people to perform an action is by providing them with high rewards in exchange for a low investment. 

If your CTA can make your audience feel like there is a very low risk involved for them if they click on it, they will feel more comfortable clicking on it. 

Don’t put too much pressure on your audience and make them feel like they are getting into something big when interacting with your business. It can lead to insecurity and uncertainty. That means if people aren’t sure about whether or not they should click on your CTA, they won’t. 

So, as a business, your job should be to make the prospective customer feel like they have nothing to lose by clicking on the CTA and taking action.

Use the right words to evoke the desired emotion

You want your audience to feel something when they see your CTA. This could be excitement, curiosity, or impatience. To get those feelings, you need to write a compelling sentence that uses positive words like “free” or “save” or words that evoke a sense of urgency like “limited time offer.”

As a business, you must choose words that resonate with your audience, instead of using words that are generic and could mean anything to everyone. For example, if your target audience is young decision-makers and you want them to sign up for your newsletter, you could use “Get notified with the latest news” instead of the simple “Subscribe” or “Sign up,” which work well for a more mature or corporate audience. 

When you write copy that doesn’t resonate with your audience, they will most likely ignore it completely, and thus, never take an action on it. This is bad news because if they don’t take action, they might stop seeing your ads or posts. And that will negatively affect your campaign’s performance. 

In other words, no action = no sales or revenue = waste of marketing spend. 

Remember that the little things you do add up to the bigger customer experience that you create for your customer. And being relevant is one of the most crucial ingredients of any successful CTA. 

Play on the sense of urgency

One of the most clickable factors in a CTA is the rush it is able to create in your target audience’s minds. The idea is to make people want to take action right away, instead of waiting and doing it later or worse, waiting and doing nothing. 

There are two main types of urgency that CTAs play on: high and low urgencies. 

• High urgency: 

A high urgency is something that could lead to a negative consequence if not immediately addressed. This can be anything from a medical condition that needs immediate attention to a limited-time offer! 

Let’s say, you are a pathology lab that’s running a discount campaign on health tests. You could perhaps narrow down your target audience to a segment that hasn’t recently been to a lab or has never had a health checkup done before. Then, using high urgency in your CTAs, you could encourage this group of people to undergo a full body checkup with your lab so that they can avoid any potential risk of disease. 

For instance, instead of using “Book A Full-Body Checkup Now,” you could make your CTA more effective by writing “Enjoy 40% Off On All Tests Today!”

You could also couple urgency with an emotion or feeling to elicit an action. Fear or stress could be excellent choices for such a campaign.  

• Low urgency: 

A low urgency is something that doesn’t affect the target audience at that moment but will need to be addressed later on, and therefore, it doesn’t cause them too much anxiety or stress. This type of urgency is used when you want users to take a certain action but aren’t willing to do it immediately. 

For example, if you are a SaaS business that makes social media management tools, your CTA could be a low-urgency one like “Grow Your Business Using Social Media’s True Potential” or “Unlock The Power Of Social Media,” especially if you don’t have an on-going sale and are selling your services at regular prices. 

Mind the devices on which your landing pages will be seen

When writing CTAs, it is important to consider the variety of devices that your ad will appear on. That’s why the most important thing you need to remember when writing CTAs is to write them for all devices. This is because of the size and space difference that comes with every device. 

CTAs that are built around the context of the device they are appearing on are more likely to be seen and read because they grab the target audience’s attention regardless of the size of their screen. So, make sure that you check your CTAs on different devices to ensure that they look good everywhere.

So, you have written the perfect CTA. What next?

In addition to writing strong call-to-action text, what’s shown afterward is important, as well. You need to make sure that the next thing your target audience sees after clicking on your CTA is something that they are expecting. That’s why it is crucial to design a landing page that perfectly follows up on your CTA. 

As we have already established, a good landing page is one that follows up a CTA with something relevant to the user. This means that if they clicked on the “Buy Now” CTA on your ad or post, then it is your responsibility to show them a product page with details about it.

Similarly, if your ad’s CTA says, “Click Here To Get This Product At The Lowest Price,” then your landing page should also say “Get This Product At The Lowest Price.” And if they clicked on “Try Our App,” then you should make sure that the next step shows the target audience that your app is indeed ready for download and that they can start using it right away.

The landing page is where people who have just taken one action with your offer (by clicking on your ad/post’s CTA) are going to be presented with another opportunity to get more information about your offer and take another action (buy/download/try your product). Given the additional steps, your chances of losing a potential conversion are incredibly high. So, you need to make sure that everything is seamless and perfect. 

Still, this is one of the most common mistakes that businesses make when designing their landing pages. They don’t properly follow up on their CTAs with a custom landing page that accurately reflects what they promised in the first place. In most cases, the landing pages don’t even address the customer pain points, which makes it even more ineffective.

Creating a landing page that aligns with your CTA 

A good landing page doesn’t need much work, but it does need to be designed thoughtfully and professionally so that visitors don’t get turned off by poor design or unhelpful copywriting. 

The landing page is the user’s first impression of your brand. It needs to be a complete experience, showing them everything they need to know about what you do, how you fit into the market, and what they can expect from you. 

For that, all you have to do is think from your ideal customer’s point of view and give them value in exchange for their time.

This means that your landing page must include:

• All their major and minor pain points.
• Answers to all their potential objections.
• A clear call-to-action (CTA) that tells users exactly what they need to do next.
• Links back to your website.
• Relevant images and/or videos that will help with conversions or product explanations.
• A functional CTA that does what it is intended to do. 

CTA guide for landing pages

Personalized CTAs have a 42% higher conversion rate than generic CTAs. Case-specific CTAs can be tricky to create but they are worth the effort. You can create an effective CTA in any way that makes sense for your brand. For instance, here are some examples of CTAs and the landing pages that go well with them. 

To ensure you get the most out of your CTAs, below are the most common types of calls to action for your landing page that get clicked. 

Lead form CTAs

If you want to collect leads for your business, you will need a lead form on your landing page. A lead form can be as simple as a few text fields where visitors can enter their name, email address, and phone number. Or it can be more detailed if you are selling something like digital products or services and want people who click through to complete additional information fields like annual sales or the problems that they are experiencing. 

Free trial/free offer CTAs

These CTAs usually include an offer that gives visitors access to try something for free before they commit to purchasing it. Needless to say, they have to be persuasive. 

Read more CTAs

This type of CTA is used to get users to read more content. You can use them when the goal of your landing page is either to promote the product or service or make people curious enough to get more information about it.

Lead magnet CTAs

A lead magnet is a type of incentive that you can offer to your visitors in exchange for their email addresses or other personal information. It can be anything from a free course or eBook to access to a webinar or even a free trial of your product. The goal is to convert your visitors into paying customers by offering them something valuable in exchange for their data and a good lead magnet CTA can do just that for you. 

Social sharing CTAs

This type of CTA encourages users to share the experience that they had with your brand or information that they gathered from you with others. By sharing your landing page link via social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram with people who have similar interests, they help you build up on your earned media. 

Social sharing CTAs are extremely effective because they require no additional effort from the user; all they have to do is click on the button and share the link with friends! So, you should ensure to make the process as seamless as possible. 

Creating effective CTAs isn’t rocket science. As long as you know the basics and take the time to understand your audience, you will be able to write CTAs that get clicked. Whatever you do, make sure that you stick to the common themes and CTA best practices while avoiding the mistakes that most businesses make when creating your CTAs.